


Time Unbound, Anew

by theherocomplex



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex/pseuds/theherocomplex
Summary: “Want to dance, birthday boy?” asks Hawke.His mouth a few leagues ahead of his brain, he says, “In general? No.”





	Time Unbound, Anew

**Author's Note:**

> For a Tumblr prompt from [loquaciousquark](http://loquaciousquark.tumblr.com): _kissing so desperately that their whole body curves into the other person’s_.

The gleam in Isabela’s eye is a warning, one Fenris chooses to ignore in favor of savoring the last sip of wine in his glass.

“You know,” she says, leaning in close over the table, “it  _is_  your birthday. You could stand to have a little fun, just this once.”

“I’m perfectly content,” Fenris says, before his wince at the cheers coming from in front of the fireplace makes him a liar. “I will be perfectly content,” he amends, while Isabela rolls her eyes, “when the Fereldans leave.”

Varric snorts into his stein. “Yeah, fat chance of that happening any time before dawn. Have  _you_  ever partied with a Fereldan? Even the Coterie doesn’t play around with them when they’re like this. Too many cases of alcohol poisoning.”

Isabela drums her fingers on Fenris’ shoulder. “We could go somewhere else,” she offers. “Maybe that club in Lowtown — they do the most wonderful cocktails, and I know the bouncers —”

“Of course you do.” Fenris sets his wine glass aside and shoots a futile glare at the clump of Fereldans, who are now cheering on a small woman in a ridiculous, filmy dress as she spins and hops her way through what he assumes is one of their atrocious folk dances.

 _Fereldans_ , he thinks, with an internal sneer. Now everyone in the Hanged Man will get it into their heads to dance — or worse, do  _karaoke_  — and his hopes for a quiet birthday drink with friends will be truly dashed.

But Isabela’s cocktail bar will be even worse; the last time she begged him into going, his drink arrived in some bizarre gelatinous form with a toy car inside, and he hasn’t yet recovered. What’s wrong with simple wine, served in a simple glass, that doesn’t cost half a day’s pay?

“Uh oh,” shouts Varric. The dancing woman whirls to a halt and falls laughing against a dark-haired elf. “You’re looking mutinous. Or you’re about to go over there and start a fight.”

“Ooh, are you?” Isabela perks up, and peers over the back of their booth at the ludicrous Fereldans. “Can I make a request? Take the big one in the suit, with the shoulders like a barn door. It’s always funnier when you knock down poor sods who’re twice your size.”

Fenris waves at Edwina, and then at his glass when he catches her attention. She rolls her eyes and stalks off to the bar, which he knows by now means she’s taking his order. The pleasures of the Hanged Man are few, and its miserable excuse for service is not one of them — but the drinks are cheap, it’s close to his apartment, and it usually does not have a mass of  _singing Fereldans_  in it.

He’ll have one more drink, he decides, and then go home. Isabela will pout and say he’s ruined his birthday for her,  _again_ , and Varric will make some pungent commentary about how he’s becoming a creepy hermit instead of just an angry one — but it’s his birthday, to spend or ruin as he sees fit, is it not?

One more drink, he tells himself, as Edwina starts to weave toward their booth, his wine balanced on a tray before her. Just one, and then he can sleep, and forget he’s a year older with nothing to show for it.

“Now look at  _that_ , Varric.” Isabela pokes Varric in the chest until he turns with a sigh. She nods at the Fereldans, eyebrows inching toward her hairline, and then grins when Varric sits back, whistling. “Short and ridiculous.”

Varric makes a thoughtful noise. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

“What is?” Fenris asks, before he can stop himself. And before Varric can reply, Isabela jams her elbow into Varric’s side and leans across the table, biting her lip.

“I bet,” she says, her mouth curling in a warm, sly grin, “you don’t actually know how to have a lick of fun.”

The gleam in her eyes has returned, and brought with it a challenge Fenris already knows he’ll accept. Isabela is near-irresistible when there’s a wager at hand, and the years have not taught him how to say no.

“And if I said I did?” He takes the wine and sips it without tasting while Isabela pretends to think and winds a lock of hair around her finger.

“Then  _I_  would say — go over there, and ask little miss dancey-pants if you might have the honor of the next waltz.”

Varric clears his throat. “Rivaini…”

She waves Varric off without looking away from Fenris, still smiling. “Well?” she asks, sweetly, then steals his wineglass and drinks half of it in one gulp.

Fenris flicks his eyes toward the Fereldans. They’re subdued, for now, listening intently to a blond man tell a story that involves a lot of arm-waving and dramatic swooning. The dancing woman’s back is to him, her hair blue-black in the terrible lighting that hasn’t been updated this entire age. He watches her lift a glass, then prop her chin on her fist and lean toward another black-haired woman.

_All you have to do is ask. You don’t actually have to dance with her, or any of them. And then you can go home, point proven._

“Fine,” he says, snatching back his wineglass and finishing it off before he stands, and straightens his shirt, and makes for the Fereldans.

“Fenris, before you —”

“Shut up, Varric,” hisses Isabela, just before Fenris is too far away to hear. “I want to  _see_  this.”

Ten steps take him across the bar; fifteen take him in reach of the woman’s bare shoulder. The big suited man — he of the barn-door shoulders — turns a glare on Fenris as soon as he passes into the firelight, and one by one the rest of the group turns to follow his gaze.

The dancing woman is almost the last to turn. Only the storyteller lags behind, throwing a glare of his own in Fenris’ direction before crossing his arms over his chest and sighing.

No one pays him any mind, least of all the woman staring at Fenris with a dark eyebrow raised. “Hi?” she says, loud enough to be heard over the music. Her voice is clear, and bright, and her eyes are a hot summer blue.

She is, Fenris realizes, alarmingly beautiful. He realizes this at the same moment he remembers he’s only had a bottle of the Aggregio and half a plate of fries so far tonight, and then he realizes he’s been staring at her long enough for the barn-sized man to stand up.

“I’m Fenris,” he says, when nothing else comes to mind. “Hello.”  _Shit._

The woman smiles — the curve of her mouth echoes in his mind, but he can’t place the memory, if memory it is — and holds out her hand. “I’m Hawke,” she says. “What can we do for you, Fenris?”

_I’m here to ask you to dance on a dare, to prove a point to a friend who has probably already lost interest, and I have no idea how to extract myself gracefully from this situation._

Because he is just drunk enough to be balanced between impulse and regret, what comes out of his mouth is, “It’s my birthday.”

The Fereldans  _lose their minds_.

“Happy birthday!” squeal Bethany and the dark-haired elf. The blond man rolls his eyes, and Barn Door pounds an enormous fist on the table and says one terrifying, perfect word:

“ _Shots._ ”

“Shots!” yells Hawke, throwing her hands in the air. “Shots?”

And then she licks her lips, and Fenris’ brain goes a little fuzzy, and from a long way away, he hears himself say, “Yes, shots.”

***

Hawke would fit perfectly under the curve of his arm, if Fenris let himself lean just a little farther to the right. Their arms brush, now and again, as she tells a story about something called a  _frog jump_ , which Fenris chooses to believe is a joke Fereldans play on unsuspecting Marchers instead of an actual event.

“— and then he peed on your leg, we’ve  _heard_  this before,” says Bethany. “Well, Fenris hasn’t, but —.”

“And I’m sure he finds it  _fascinating_.” Hawke turns to him, a conspiratorial smile lighting up her face. Fenris’ chest aches as he looks at her, though her makeup is smudged and there’s a wine stain down the front of her white dress. “Don’t you?”

He does not, in fact, but her smile almost makes him say yes. “It is…certainly a thing,” he hedges, borrowing Isabela’s all-purpose phrase.

Hawke elbows him. “Fine. It’s a stupid story. Let’s see you do better.”

Is he never to be free of beautiful women daring him? Fenris taps his finger on his empty shot glass, and tries to ignore the eyes of the table falling upon him.

_What about the story about how I walked over here on a dare an hour ago, and haven’t yet left?_

He’s saved from answering as a strident guitar line comes over the bar’s speakers, and everyone — not just the Fereldans — start cheering.

“Oh,  _hell_  yes,” says Barn Door. He slams his fist into the table again and hauls himself to his feet. “About time they played a banger in here.”

“And this is one for the ages.” Hawke hops down from her stool, stretching her arms over her head.

Something tightens in Fenris’ chest when he realizes how  _tiny_  she is, and then he thinks of how easily he could lift her, and move her, and he has to dig his nails into the table’s soft wood to distract himself with a splinter or seven.

“Fenris?” He looks up to find her smiling, one hand held out to him. There’s something familiar about the gesture, and about her smile — as if they’ve stood facing each other just like this a thousand times before, her hand waiting for his, her smile warm and a little hopeful.

“Want to dance, birthday boy?” asks Hawke.

His mouth a few leagues ahead of his brain, he says, “In general? No.”

“Oh, I meant with me,” she says, easily. The song throbs around them, and it seems the whole bar is on the dance floor, shouting along with the lyrics and whirling in a sweaty mass of bright colors and laughter. “One time only offer, get it while it’s hot.”

His heart stutters —  _take the chance, take it_ — and he clasps her hand before he can think twice. “For you?” he says, aware of her pulse and the smell of her perfume — roses and honey, as ever the same — and the faint crinkling of skin at her eyes as she beams, and leads him into the dance.

It’s too hot and too loud — there’s a reason why he never dances, especially not like this — but Hawke’s hands are steady on his waist and shoulder, so there’s nothing to do but follow her as the song crests, and falls, and crests again.

He spins her out, far as his arm will go, and reels her in, her back against his chest. She tilts her head to his shoulder, laughing at the ceiling.

“Last time we did that, I think I broke two of your toes,” she says. “So we’re already ahead of —”

She blinks, eyes unfocused, then shakes herself, and whirls away, still laughing, if shakily. “Sorry about that,” she says, when he catches her by the hip and draws her close again. “I get a little silly whenever I hit that Marcher whiskey. Don’t pay me any mind.”

Fenris’ foot aches, briefly, as the song comes to a close. Easy enough to ignore, especially when she spins so lightly in the cage of his arms. But the song goes on, and on, and he’s dizzy, pressure building in his temples and chest, and these things he can’t ignore.

He looks away and holds his breath, long enough for the song to wail its way through its final chorus. When he turns his gaze back to Hawke, her dress is no longer white, but red; there are gold ribbons in her hair, and deep scars twisting across her cheek.

Their last Satinalia ball, at the Keep. How could he have forgotten?

The image lasts barely a moment — just long enough for the next song to start playing, another jangling guitar line that makes his head ache and his stomach churn. Hawke stares at him, wild-eyed, her dress white once more, and her face unmarked.

“I don’t — Fenris?”

He turns away, sick with an abrupt yearning that is not his,  _cannot be his,_ and shoves out of the dancing, laughing crowd. Hawke calls his name, but he keeps moving, staggering when he catches his knee on a chair and plunging onward, onto the empty, chilly balcony.

There he falls against the railing, gasping lungfuls of cold air and trying to breathe through the waves of nausea. Below him stretches Kirkwall, stained by smog and rain, the streetlights blue and unsympathetic above the eternal gridlock.

But — another Kirkwall lies beneath it, just as filthy and rain-choked, but made of stone, not steel, and he can hear the gulls crying overhead, where before he only heard car horns and the muffled noises from inside the bar.

“No,” he says, through gritted teeth. “No,  _no_.”

He’s drunk, and sleep-deprived, and there is no meaning to what he sees. There is no  _memory_  here, not of another life, and certainly not of  _her_.

“Something in the wine,” he tells himself, again and again. “Something —”

The door behind him opens on a blast of noise and heat. His stomach turns at the smell of spilled ale and stale fries, and he hunches over, willing himself not to be sick.

Then the noise is gone, and the stench, and he could be alone once more, save for the patient smell of roses falling all around him.

“I’ll go, if you want,” says Hawke. “But just tell me if you’re all right first. Please.”

A hard laugh works its way out of Fenris’ mouth. “I’m  _fine_ ,” he snaps, without looking at her. “Overheated. That’s — all is well.”

He can’t bring himself to say her name. Even thinking it is too great a risk; the other Kirkwall presses in, close and hungry, and he hears his own voice, almost breaking:  _Hawke, promise me you won’t die._

“I find that hard to believe, especially when I’m —” A quick catch of breath. On reflex, Fenris turns around, and sees Hawke standing at the door, a hand at her throat. “You hate fish,” she begins, shivering now, her eyes wet but unflinching. “But you love apples. I brought them to you when you were sick that winter, and —”

“Stop,” he half-yells, and she does, so quickly her teeth catch her lip. “I don’t know you. I never — we —”

She brought him the apples, ground to a fine paste, cooled by her magic to be easy on his sore throat. And then she read to him until he slept, and when he woke, she was still beside him.

“We don’t know each other at all,” he lies, but he takes a step closer to her when she sighs. “It is not possible.”

Hawke tilts her head back to meet his gaze. There are tears along her lashes, but he does not let himself brush them away. “I said I would take you to stranger places, didn’t I?” she asks, a final dare.

She did. She had. Something gives way deep in his chest, and he touches her cheek with the tips of his fingers. Hawke shudders, but doesn’t move save for closing her eyes.

“You did,” he says, at last, when the pain below his ribs has passed, and a great lightness has replaced it. “And it seems you have.”

Hawke smiles, wistful, not yet opening her eyes, as he strokes trembling fingers along her jaw. It will hurt, this he knows — there is so much yet to remember, and in his heart he knows the balance falls so often toward pain.

But there will be  _Hawke_ , somehow lost and now found again, her heart beating once more against his palm. So he kisses her, gently at first, and then giving up all pretense when she makes a helpless little noise and falls against him. She is so  _warm_ , so small, and every bone and muscle is familiar. His teeth on her throat will make her cry out; his hands in her hair will make her gasp. He cannot get close enough, and he never could — but he will never stop trying, not while they both have breath.

“Hawke,” he says, the old, unforgotten prayer. “We —”

“Yes,” she says, weeping now. “Yes, love,  _yes_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Come talk to me on [Tumblr!](http://theherocomplex.tumblr.com) <3


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